NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Its first two offensive plays of Saturday’s second half netted Notre Dame a loss of one yard, yet those two plays turned a pyrrhic victory into a prototypical 48-37 victory over Wake Forest.

The dropped pass counted as a good thing. The deep shot showed Wimbush was still healthy, at least as far as football is concerned. Instead of the needed win costing Notre Dame its offensive keystone to a left hand injury, the sloppy victory fit in line with what has become a usual Irish offensive performance, though this one exceeded even those expanding norms.

“I’d say offensively, they’re certainly up there with the caliber of Clemson,” Demon Deacons head coach Dave Clawson said. “They’re a really good football team. They’ve beaten a lot of good teams. They beat us today and we’re a good team.”

The Irish rushed for 384 yards, led by Wimbush’s 114 yards and two touchdowns. Junior running back and Heisman-hopeful Josh Adams took only five carries for 22 yards, sidelined for all but the first quarter after a hit to the head prompted concussion concerns. Kelly said Adams was cleared to return, but the exercised caution caused no harm. Notre Dame averaged 8.53 yards per carry. It gained a total of 710 yards. For now on, let’s just call that “a lot” of yards, because 710 is a somewhat difficult to fathom.

Most of them were necessary, though. After being held to 10 points and 242 yards in the first half, Wake Forest managed 27 points and 345 after halftime.

“Winning is hard, especially in November,” Irish coach Brian Kelly said. “Anytime that you find a way to win football games when teams are executing at a high level, which Wake Forest executed their offense extremely well today, you’re pleased.”

Wimbush played a key role in the offensive showcase, adding 280 yards and a touchdown through the air to his rushing totals. All that was nearly rendered a footnote when just before halftime he took a hit at the end of a 28-yard run. Though he did not score, Wimbush remained down in the Notre Dame Stadium north end zone for a few minutes. From there he went straight up the tunnel to the locker room, emerging after the break with a padded glove protecting his non-throwing hand. A large bandage covered the hand in post-game interviews.

Wimbush said the injury did not bother him much in the second half, and it should not moving forward, either, then admitting taking snaps from center was difficult.

“But we don’t do that too much and we were able to do the things we do under center out of the gun or out of the pistol, so it didn’t affect much in terms of the throwing game,” Wimbush said. “Maybe handing it off, as well, but everything is good and I’ll be good to go next week.”

TURNING POINT OF THE GAME
For the second consecutive game and the third time this season, sophomore cornerback Julian Love jumped a route and saw clear passage to the end zone in front of him. This time Love ended a Wake Forest drive early in the second quarter with the Irish leading 14-3. A touchdown would grant Notre Dame both a three-possession lead and an abundance of momentum.

Unfortunately for Love’s stats, Deacons senior quarterback John Wolford had an angle on him and knocked him out of bounds at the five-yard line. No matter, sophomore running back Tony Jones took the next snap into the end zone for the aforementioned lead and momentum.

It was one of Wolford’s few mistakes, finishing the day with 331 yards and two touchdowns on 28-of-45 passing. As well as the Irish defense has played this season — and it has — Wolford knows the scheme well. Notre Dame defensive coordinator Mike Elko spent the last three seasons in the same role at Wake Forest.

“Their quarterback was playing against this defense for three or four years now,” Irish senior captain and linebacker Drue Tranquill said afterward. “He’s obviously very experienced in that. His eyes were in the right place at every point in the game and ours weren’t necessarily.”

Despite the defensive lapses in the second half, forcing a miscue early and immediately capitalizing on it set Notre Dame toward the eventual win. Love is beginning to make a habit of such.

OVERLOOKED POINT OF THE GAME
The Irish defense had yet to relax when the Deacons marched 54 yards in three minutes midway through the third quarter. That was simply a good offense, and if it went the final 23 yards to the end zone, the Notre Dame lead would have been cut to 34-17 with six minutes left in the third quarter. Wake Forest might have started to wonder about the realm of possibility.

Instead, Irish senior defensive end Jay Hayes forced Wolford to rush a pass and then Love made a tackle in the backfield to bring up third-and-12. When the Deacons could not convert, they turned to their field goal unit.

Missing the field goal was an added bonus for Notre Dame. The real task had been to keep Wake Forest out of the end zone. The 24-point deficit was not going to be overcome in 21 minutes relying on field goals.

PLAY(S) OF THE GAME
This could qualify as another overlooked point of the game. Tossing superlatives on it may seem out of place. One should not usually praise spin moves that lead to unnecessary fumbles and injured running backs.

Toward the end of the first quarter, Wimbush took to a scramble, attempting to make something happen with a mere 7-3 lead. As he spun from a tackle, Deacons linebacker Kalin McNeil poked away the ball. It bounced around for a moment. Somewhere in this sequence Adams took the hit that knocked him out for the day.

Irish senior left guard Quenton Nelson saw the ball, already on the ground having physically completed a block. He climbed over a Wake Forest defensive lineman to get to it.

Of course he did. Nelson does whatever he wants on a football field.

The drive resulted in only a Notre Dame field goal and a 10-3 lead, but that was far preferable to the Irish than gifting the Deacons a short-field and a chance at their second lead of the day.

PLAYER OF THE GAME
To produce 390 total yards and three touchdowns in only three quarters is to stake a claim to this space, and thus Wimbush did. He also received the game ball from Kelly.

“The narrative of him [not] being able to throw the football should change dramatically,” Kelly said. “He had a couple of drops out there or he would have easily thrown for close to 300 yards, so hopefully that has been put to rest.”

Kelly apparently did not want to play Wimbush in the second half. As much as Adams is the star of the Irish offense, Wimbush is the headache for opposing defensive coordinators. Kelly wanted to protect that asset.

“How many scrambles did he have?” Clawson asked rhetorically. “How many third-and-long scrambles did he have that we couldn’t tackle? … We’d get after the passer, get a little bit of a pass-rush, get them fleshed, but couldn’t get [him] on the ground.”

Wimbush insisted to Kelly he would play, and with that cushioned glove he did.

“I loved his grit, his toughness,” Kelly said. “Gets hit pretty hard, right before the half, and … he wanted to get back in the game. Put a pad on his hand and went back in the game and showed great grit and great leadership.”

STAT OF THE GAME
Josh Adams deserves to be in the Heisman Trophy discussion. He deserves it because he is a complete running back achieving great individual success this season. He deserves it also because Notre Dame’s offensive line is making that success quite possible. Consider the individual rushing totals Saturday:

Wimbush ran for 114 yards on 11 carries, adjusting for a sack.
Sophomore Deon McIntosh ran for 63 yards on nine carries.
Jones gained 59 yards on 10 rushes.
Sophomore quarterback Ian Book took three carries for 54 yards.
Sophomore receiver Kevin Stepherson had two end-arounds for 42 yards.
Junior Dexter Williams gained 33 yards on three carries.
And Adams managed 22 yards on five rushes before his injury.

“You could put a lot of running backs behind that offensive line and anybody will produce,” Wimbush said. “The rest of the backs did a great job of preparing throughout the week, and when they have the opportunity, they are able to take advantage of it, and obviously it’s a testament to up front continuing their dominance and opening up holes for the guys.”

QUOTE OF THE EVENING
“A little sloppy today, but the message is a win is a win.” — McGlinchey.

On a day where many of the nation’s elite did not do enough to issue such an abbreviated cliché, McGlinchey’s point rings strongly.

This is not to diminish the losses of receiver Miles Boykin and consensus first-team All-American cornerback Julian Love. Notre Dame will miss both of them, Love in particular. But looking at the Irish depth chart, there are avenues to survival without both.

Notre Dame will return two starting receivers in rising senior Chase Claypool and fifth-year-to-be Chris Finke (speaking of which, see below). A number of options exist to replace Love, though obviously none will match his shutdown abilities. Either rising sophomore TaRiq Bracy will put on the necessary muscle to compete with receivers at this level or rising senior Donte Vaughn will return reinvigorated with health after recent surgery to repair a torn labrum surgery or rising sophomore Houston Griffith will move from safety to get his talent on the field or fifth-year Shaun Crawford will recover from an ACL tear quicker than expected or … or … or … If one of those pans out, the Irish defense should be comfortable in its coverage, buoyed by the stalwart safety combination of Alohi Gilman and Jalen Elliott. (Imagine sincerely saying “stalwart safety combination” just six months ago.)

Look again at the depth chart, and such luxuries do not exist at defensive end. If rising seniors Khalid Kareem and Julian Okwara had not opted to return, Notre Dame’s 2019 dreams would have hit a lowered ceiling nine months before the season began. By no means were they certain high-round draft picks, but the allure of athletic and talented defensive ends may have easily led to some outsized draft hopes.

Their backups are certainly more than capable — rising seniors Daelin Hayes and Ade Ogundeji — but a talented second-unit is as important at defensive end as dangerous starters are. To replace the latter with the former is to diminish the entire enterprise outright.

The Irish could not have recovered from losing both Kareem and Okwara, at least not to the extent where Playoff talk would be viable again. Lose one and it would have still been dubious, at best.

Take a look at the teams expected to be in the mix for the Playoff. Using current championship odds … Clemson at 2-to-1, Alabama at just less than 3-to-1, Georgia at 6-to-1, Ohio State at 8-to-1, Michigan at 16-to-1 and then Oklahoma also at 16-to-1. Those first five have been known for their defenses more than anything else in recent years. Bookmakers put some faith in their ability to reload on the fly.

Notre Dame has not earned that trust, and its roster does not indicate it should have. As well as Justin Ademilola performed as a freshman in four games, inserting him into a pivotal role in 2019 would likely be a recipe for a mediocre season. He is another year of development away from being ready for that role, barring a Matt Balis-induced excellent offseason.

The Irish will need Kareem and Okwara to survive the losses of defensive tackles Jerry Tillery and Jonathan Bonner, but if they play as they did in 2018, that is a reasonable ask. If they continue to develop, it becomes a probability more than a Notre Dame leap of faith.

The Irish will miss Boykin’s back-shoulder reliability and everything about Love, but Brian Kelly and his coaching staff coaxed back the two most-pivotal pieces from NFL draft consideration.

Speaking of Finke, he confirmed his intent to return for his final year of eligibility Thursday evening. And he did it in a way only befitting a man comfortable in his own skin.

With the Wednesday announcement of current junior linebacker D.J. Morgan’s intention to transfer this summer as a graduate with two years of eligibility remaining, Notre Dame’s roster drops to 87 scholarship players expected this coming fall. Included among them, at least 12, possibly 14 linebackers. Before explaining that …

Morgan finishes his Irish career with two tackles in two 2017 appearances as a safety. He moved to linebacker during 2018’s spring practices, but never came particularly close to playing time. It remained difficult to see him cracking into the rotation moving forward given the quality of recruiting classes at the position in the last two cycles.

“I would like to thank the University of Notre Dame for everything they have done for me,” Morgan wrote on Twitter. “When I decided to come here, my main goal was to get my degree from this prestigious University, and I am proud to see that I will be completing that goal this summer!

“During this time I will be searching for a new school to attend as a graduate transfer to finish off my last 2 years of eligibility.”

(@deundraymorgan)

Before facing Louisville on Labor Day, the Irish will need to be down to 85 scholarship players. At 87 now, that does not include incoming freshman J.D. Bertrand, who had a recruitment handled in a deliberate fashion so as to make him eligible for an academic scholarship. Notre Dame also continues to chase two defenders — consensus four-star linebacker Asa Turner and consensus four-star defensive end Isaiah Foskey — who could balloon the roster count further.

Lacey will need to be ready for at least four games next season, especially with three of these six returning from injury: Tagovailoa-Amosa with a broken foot, though he did at least take some snaps against Clemson; Franklin from a torn quad that will limit him through the spring; and Spears from a torn ACL that could conceivably cost him 2019.

Former Notre Dame quarterback Brandon Wimbush will continue his career at Central Florida. Wimbush announced his graduate transfer destination Tuesday morning.

“The journey continues on …,” Wimbush wrote on Instagram. “A sincere thank you to Notre Dame for giving me endless opportunities on and off the field. Words truly can not (sic) describe what this incredible University and the PEOPLE mean to me and always will mean to me. I’m truly thankful. Cannot say it enough.

“With that being said, I am excited to announce that UCF has granted me an awesome opportunity to play my last year of collegiate football for their great University.”

Wimbush will enter into a starting opportunity, although an unfortunate one and a competitive one. The late November horrendous knee injury to three-year starter McKenzie Milton will almost-assuredly sideline him through the 2019 season. If not for the injury, Milton would either be starting 2019 for the Knights or headed to the NFL.

In his first year of any action, sophomore Darriel Mack played in 10 games for Central Florida, completing 51 of his 100 pass attempts for 619 yards and three touchdowns, including going 35-of-71 for 526 yards and three scores in the two-plus games Milton missed.

Wimbush finishes his Irish career with a 13-3 record as a starter, including four wins during 2018’s unbeaten regular season. After the Notre Dame offense failed to break 24 points in the first three games of the season, offensive coordinator Chip Long turned to Ian Book for a spark, one Book provided and then some.

Wimbush’s role became non-existent after that, aside from a Senior Day start in place of an injured Book, throwing for 130 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for 68 yards.

Mustipher and Co. will now have reason to keep an eye on the Knights in 2019. After going 25-1 in the last two seasons, Central Florida will want to keep the momentum rolling, particularly with Stanford arriving in Orlando on Sept. 14, a week before the Knights head to Pittsburgh. The Knights genuinely entering the College Football Playoff conversation remains unlikely, but topping those two before rolling through the American Athletic Conference would at least start the discussion, especially if a former Irish quarterback headlines the way.

Named 2018’s Next Man In, Wimbush finishes his Irish career with 2,606 yards on 193-of-382 passing with 20 touchdowns and 12 interceptions along with 1,155 rushing yards and 16 additional touchdowns.

AS FOR NOTRE DAME’S QB IN 2019 …Early Heisman odds came from an online sportsbook Tuesday, betonline.ag. Irish rising senior Ian Book was given 16-to-1 odds, tied for ninth on the listing. Given the names ahead of him, Book’s realistic chances of winning the Heisman Trophy are slim. Only Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence and Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa have odds lower than 12-to-1, at 7-to-2 and 4-to-1, respectively.

Then come two Notre Dame opponents — Georgia running back D’Andre Swift and quarterback Jake Fromm, both at 12-to-1. Michigan quarterback Shea Patterson checks in at 25-to-1, just ahead of Stanford quarterback K.J. Costello at 33-to-1.

If nothing else, Book can count on some early-season hype if the Irish top Swift and Fromm on Sept. 21.

Dabo Swinney paid tribute to the late Tyler Trent in his speech while Clemson visited the White House 🙏

A sign of a strong program is one that loses players to the NFL before they exhaust eligibility. In that vein, Notre Dame lost a consensus first-team All-American cornerback, its leading receiver and a long-time tease of a tight end. The last of those (Alizé Mack) was never expected back for a fifth season; replacing Miles Boykin’s production is certainly within reason; and a consensus first-team All-American should be expected to take the route junior Julian Love has.

Even with that expectation, losing Love — and to a lesser extent, Boykin — alters the natural roster cycle, the inherent design intended during recruiting. Reloading is always the hope, the next intention, but very rarely is the young backup comparable to the near professional, even by the end of the coming season.

Nonetheless, the Irish got off easy this cycle compared to four of their 2019 opponents …

GEORGIA: Junior running back Elijah Holyfield, the Bulldogs’ second-leading rusher, departs after gaining 1,018 rushing yards with seven touchdowns on 6.4 yards per carry this season. Frankly, that is the least of Georgia’s losses. Three of quarterback Jake Fromm’s four favorite targets will leave eligibility on the figurative table:

Without running back Karan Higdon, Michigan will presumably rely on its passing game more in 2019, quarterback Shea Patterson’s second season as a Wolverine. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

MICHIGAN: The Wolverines got good news when quarterback Shea Patterson opted to return for 2019, but losing leading-rusher Karan Higdon (1,178 yards, 10 touchdowns, 5.3 average) will be an issue head coach Jim Harbaugh undoubtedly hoped to avoid. Junior tight end Zach Gentry, Patterson’s third-most prolific target with 32 catches for 514 yards and two scores, will also head to the next level.

On the flip side, Harbaugh could have hoped linebacker Devin Bush (team-leading 80 tackles with 9.5 for loss including five sacks), defensive end Rashan Gary (44 tackles with seven for loss including 3.5 sacks) or linebacker David Long (17 tackles with one interception) might return, but no such luck for Michigan.

Duke junior quarterback Daniel Jones will head to the NFL after his third season as a starter, immediately lowering the Blue Devils’ 2019 expectations. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

DUKE: Junior linebacker Joe Giles-Harris paced the Blue Devils with 81 tackles, including seven for loss with one sack, doing so in only nine games. But losing Giles-Harris is hardly the concern for Duke. The decision to turn pro from quarterback Daniel Jones is.

In his third year as a starter, the junior fought through a broken collarbone to still play in 11 games in 2018, completing 60.5 percent of his passes for 2,674 yards and 22 touchdowns with nine interceptions. He added 319 rushing yards and three touchdowns.

Jones’ decision may come as a surprise, but it is one that should work out well for both him and Notre Dame. Some mock drafts project him as a top-10 pick. In a draft light on quarterbacks — partly because Oregon’s Justin Herbert returned for another season, yet already somewhat counteracted by the Monday draft entry from Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray — Jones could end up being the third or fourth passer picked.

BOSTON COLLEGE: The Eagles will say farewell to junior cornerback Hemp Cheevers after he notched seven interceptions this season, returning one for a touchdown, to go along with 39 tackles.

STANFORD: This will seem like the Cardinal lost a lot to the NFL draft, but it could have been worse: As the departures mounted, so did speculation junior quarterback K.J. Costello might follow them. He opted not to.

Stanford will be without running back Bryce Love after his prodigious two seasons as the starter. Consider that a loss akin to the Irish Love, the inevitable price of enjoying the success in the first place.

Junior receiver J.J. Arcega-Whiteside will capitalize on his breakout season of 1,059 yards and 14 touchdowns, depriving Costello of his favorite jump-ball threat.

Junior tight end Kaden Smith will also head to the next level, in large part thanks to his 47 catches for 635 yards and two touchdowns this past season.

Louisville, New Mexico, Virginia, Bowling Green, USC, Virginia Tech and Navy all did not lose anyone early or pseudo-early to the NFL draft.